Pedro Bestard ordered an unmarked official car to be reserved for him

PalmPedro Bestard ordered that one of the new vehicles acquired by the Department of Environment of the Consell de Mallorca be reserved for him and that it not be labeled as an official car of the institution. "This car, reserve it for me," sources familiar with the matter confirm that Bestard said, who would be responsible for not labeling it.

The revelation, within the framework of the Consell's internal investigation into Bestard's use of two vehicles, reinforces the suspicion that the public purchase of the car —initially intended for the ordinary services of the Environment Department— ended up leading to practically exclusive and personal use. For days now, it has been questioned whether the vice president was using unmarked official vehicles to go to his home, attend party events, and habitually move around using public resources while his private car remained parked for days at the Consell headquarters.

The case has exploded after reports published this week about the continued use of two official vehicles —a Subaru and a Dacia— linked to the Environment Department and without the mandatory signage of the Consell de Mallorca. According to some sources, one of the vehicles would have initially circulated with institutional identification that would have been removed later, while the other would never have been labeled. For this reason, the president of the Consell has ordered the preparation of two reports and, furthermore, has requested formal explanations from Bestard.

The information that ARA Balears has been able to verify also places the vehicles parked in front of Bestard's private home in Marratxí, outside working hours and during the night. The opposition, especially MÉS per Mallorca, has requested the route sheets, fuel records, and vehicle files to reconstruct all journeys and clarify whether there was improper use of public resources. Some opposition voices have lamented that "these are the public managers who claimed to be bringing order to politics, when it is evident that they have come to take advantage."

Not only is the use of the Subaru being investigated, but also that of the Dacia, also assigned to the Environment Department. Various sources suggest that this vehicle would also have had private use by some trusted official, without the recurrence or intensity of these situations being able to be proven at the moment. In any case, within the Consell's civil servants, there is discontent over the situation created by this whole controversy.

Bestard's situation has been getting complicated due to the large amount of information assuring that he has made private use of a public vehicle, and for this reason the vice-president of the institution has been summoned to the Transparency Commission of the Consell, which will take place this Thursday morning.

Bestard finds it normal

Curiously, knowledgeable sources assure that Bestard maintains that he has not carried out any irregular action and that, every time he is questioned on the subject, he insists that he has no record of having abused the vehicles owned by the Department of Environment of the Consell de Mallorca in any case. This has caused even more tension between the Presidency team of the institution and Bestard himself.

The new information provided by sources from the Consell gives another dimension to the controversy, because it points out that Bestard's interest in the vehicle was born at the very moment of the department's public purchase. According to these sources, the vice-president reserved the car as soon as it arrived at the institution and ordered that it not be externally identified as an official vehicle, a decision that fits with the suspicions expressed in recent days by the opposition about a possible "will to conceal" and an "appropriation" of public resources.

Questioned figure

The episode arrives at a moment of maximum political tension surrounding Bestard, who has become one of the toughest faces of Vox within the Consell and also a leader involved in internal conflicts. In recent months, the island's vice-president has accumulated controversies over his positions on immigration, the environment, and public aid, while within the PP and within Vox, criticism of his management style and the political weight he has gained in Llorenç Galmés's government team has increased. Bestard, who controls Environment, Rural Affairs, and Sports thanks to the pact between the PP and Vox in the Consell, had already had internal disputes with the Balearic party leadership and left the autonomous executive of Vox in September 2024, amid rumors of internal fracture and struggles for the party's organic control.

The controversy over official cars also directly impacts the president of the Consell, Llorenç Galmés, whom the PSIB and MÉS accuse of having tolerated the excesses of his far-right partner for months to preserve the government majority. All of this has made the vehicle case the first major political crisis of the legislature within the island institution, with calls for resignation, demands for internal investigation, and strong tensions, both within the Govern and between the right-wing partners. Galmés, according to sources close to the Consell, has been inflexible with the situation and has not only requested the reports but does not rule out any decision based on the outcome.